Hello! Well here we are again, I tried this last year and unfortunately it fell flat. Im motivated to do it this year however, here is the basic information for what im in right now.

6'1, 230 pounds and a membership to the YMCA, soon 24 hour fitness.

I want to atleast get down to 200, maybe 180 but my main goal is 170. That's about 6 pounds to shed in under 6 months. Anime Expo to be exact, and I want to very much look good for this for it maybe my last year.

230 to 170 in about 6 months? That's going to be pretty challenging. I did something like that in roughly 5 months but I didn't give myself room to mess up nutrition wise, some days I was doing up to 3 hours of cardio and had to force myself to stop, and there was no chance I was going to lose my motivation.

So here's the really short version of what you need to do. If you'd like for me to expand on different things I'd be more than happy to:

You need to be in a caloric deficit, that's the only way you lose weight. It doesn't really matter what you eat as long as you're in a caloric deficit. Your diet could consist of fried twinkies and double quarter pounders, so long as you expend more energy than you take in you will lose weight.

To get into a caloric deficit you need to get an estimate of maintenance calories and subtract from there. Normally 10-20% of your maintenance is sufficient, however, the bigger you are the bigger of a deficit you handle.

Exercise isn't necessary but will greatly improve your likelihood to succeed as well as generally speeding up your results. Cardio is going to be your bread and butter, and don't get lumped into the trap of running the treadmill if you hate it. Swimming, dancing, playing DDR, jump rope, basketball, and so on are all wonderful ways of getting in cardio. Find something you'll enjoy doing otherwise you're going to burn out and quit. You will also benefit greatly from incorporating strength training as well.

^ what he said...the thing is you don't want to crash diet and lose lots of weight because when you go back to eating regularly...you will gain all of it back because your metabolism will be damaged. uhh for now just reduce calories by 3500 cals a week which is 500 a day. that should help for now not including exercise.

You're going to need a good diet AND good exercise to get that much off that quickly. It's possible, and I think that you can do it, but you need to be doing things right.

What does your current diet/fitness regimen look like? Also, have you figured out what your daily caloric maintenance requirements look like?(you can find out a rough number from a calculator like this one: http://www.exrx.net/Calculators/CalRequire.html )

I would also suggest adding weights into your workout routine. Building muscle is going to help boot your metabolism and help you burn calories even when you aren't working out. Full body weight routines are great, pull ups, dips, squats, deadlifts, these will give you the best result. Lifting heavy weights wont give you a body builders body. (I'm assuming you are a woman based on the name ^_^ Women don't produce the testosterone to get huge muscle.

Other than that what everyone else said will help give you a good start. In order to reach your goals in 6 months you are going to have to have a very strong will. It will be difficult and you probably wont notice any changes for the first two weeks or so. Keep at it though.

Pick a goal related to skill in addition to your weight goal. Aim to lift a weight you've never been able to lift. Work towards running a distance that right now seems impossible. You'll amaze yourself with what you can do.

I didn't lose a lot over training (actually I gained quite a bit because I had a baby), but if you told me not that long ago I'd complete a half-marathon and I'd want to run a full the following year, I'd have looked at you really funny. No number on a scale can ever take that from me.